The Milne Bay crash that killed three Australians and a New Zealander in PNG on Tuesday has also exposed serious concerns about CASA’s handling of Trans Air’s operations and anger about the allegedly poor performance of some of the parties involved in Australian investigations into the Kokoda disaster last year.
While the ATSB has agreed to a PNG invitation to assist in its investigation at the site where the operator’s Citation II jet crashed off the runway on Misima Island, its involvement is being kept at levels Port Moresby considers appropriate to an aviation accident rather than a political circus.
Information given to Crikey says that a massive and costly inquiry by Australian authorities — including the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts as well as the ATSB, CASA and DFAT — into the crash of a PNG Airlines Twin Otter while descending toward the Kokoda airstrip on August 11 last year produced a report so badly flawed that it was withdrawn without a detailed release after the PNG authorities objected to what they regarded as factual errors and mistakes within it.
That crash killed 13 people including nine Australians about to embark on the Kokoda Track walk. An official and detailed PNG report into the tragedy is in preparation for public release on a date to be announced.
The anger in Port Moresby over CASA’s alleged ‘persecution’ of Trans Air and one of its co-owners, Les Wright, who died in Tuesday’s crash is not about Wright’s numerous offences against Australian safety regulations while chief pilot and part owner of the earlier Transair, which went out of business after the crash of its Metroliner turbo-prop while approaching Lockhart River in far northern Queensland on May 7, 2005, killing all 15 people on board.
Rather it is about a perceived vendetta against the PNG Trans Air operation, in which Wright had no role in its management of safety, and which officials in Port Moresby saw as an attempt by CASA to deflect blame for its complicity in the Lockhart River crash.
To summarise from privileged documents, the ATSB in its inquiry in the 2005 crash blamed inadequate and ineffective CASA oversight of Wright and Transair as a contributing factor, in that if CASA had done its job the accident would never have happened. These claims, subsequently pursued by the relatives of the Lockhart River dead through Senate committee hearings into CASA and aired in a coronial inquest, are well supported.
The CASA ‘vendetta’ against Wright and Trans Air failed after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in January reversed the regulator’s refusal to issue a certificate of approval for its medical evacuation and related flight activities between PNG and Australia. Those flights used the same jet that was destroyed on Tuesday after it was observed to aquaplane off the Misima Island airstrip in heavy rain and crash into trees.
Wright is now dead, and following the comments about him and Trans Air made yesterday by CASA, which sough to leverage positive spin on its failures to deal with Transair in 2005, so is its reputation in PNG.
Wright and Trans Air had exactly the same disreputable history in PNG as they did in Australia. They should never have been flying in either country. Two of Trans Air PNG’s senior pilots blew the whistle on Wright and his PNG company years ago, but everyone, including CASA, ignored them. CASA deliberately turned a blind eye over many long years to the constant breaches of civil aviation laws by Wright and Trans Air. CASA is as culpable in the deaths of the three innnocent passengers this week as it is for the 15 people who died at Lockhart River in 2005. And don’t think CASA has changed. It is still the same old negligent, incompetent, dishonest arse-covering organisation it always was.
CASA is a corpse beyond redemption exactly as pointed out in comment #1.
Until the chronically ill general aviation stream is genuinely given reduced prominence instead of allowing the CASA butchers to keep trying to cut pieces of flesh off it, it will always be easier for CASA to focus on the GA trivia instead of the fare paying passenger.
One of the most recent classics was covered by Paul Phelan and is (I believe) in continuing CASA vendetta mode. See if you can answer the question below the photo!!!
http://www.aviationadvertiser.com.au/2009/04/dad%E2%80%99s-army-rides-again/
A move to the FAA model – both regulations and priorities – will not occur while the current “ex airline ex defence” mindset permeates the organisation and focuses on the easy targets and safety by regulatory paper weight (if the regulatory rewrite actually finishes in my lifetime).
Lockhart River was a proof of the need for a re-engineering of CASA. Even before the hearings there was interesting rumour about investigations conducted by a PI from Canberra into corruption up North (not to mention a vendetta against a certain aircraft manufacturer in an eastern state) but nothing ever surfaced in the public eye.
The national resource – airspace – administered by CASA OAR is inconsistent and reactions such as that recently to the Class C radar directive only leave industry more convinced that the regulator is lost at sea.
One of my correspondent colleagues died in the Milne Bay crash. I can only thank whichever deity you follow that CASA are not in charge of road safety or he probably wouldn’t even have made it to the airport alive.
There was enough evidence in the Lockhart River case to disband CASA. that is what needs to happen, before more innocent fare-paying passengers die from its neglect, incompetence and corruption. CASA is NOT able to be turned into a responsible, effective organisation.
I mentioned its arse-covering in my original post. The report of the private investigator into corruption in CASA’s Queensland operations has still not been made public, and I suppose that because the responsible Minister, Anthony Albanese, is so lazy and complacent, it never will. Public safety is the loser.
The post above shows exactly the sort of problem – call it corruption, call it incompetence, call it what you will – that is a constant at CASA.
And CASA’s blatant attempts to pressure members of the ATSB conducting the Lockhart River inquiry need to be scrutinised as well. Attempting to interfere in and hinder an official ATSB inquiry is a very serious matter.
The 2009 Aust government report was buried because it was so blatantly factually correct, it could never see the light of day as it would be the end of avaition in PNG. Politics and nothing to do with the content. It was leaked in PNG (as was the ICAO report) and contains so many issues relating to the recent Transair crash – the PNG CAA are culpable!
The current PNG Minister of aviation made a press release yesterday stating “there were no connections between management or key personnel of Transair (Aust) and Transair (PNG)” !!!!!!! Mmmmmm. So i guess Les Wright (RIP) must have been a paying passenger!
The PNG CASA also had one of their FOIs onboard (RIP). The questions begs, why was the Transair Citation operating (with PNG CASA onboard!!) into Misima, which is a Category Y airfield? It’s limited to aircraft with a MTOW of 5,700 KG!!. Last time i checked, the Citation exceeds that limit and as this was a runway overrun, its likely to be the cause. I suspect that may feature in the report, or maybe not, this is PNG of course.
We self regulate up here due to the incompetence of CASA, thats life in PNG avaition!
Les Wright was a good guy trying to keep avaition going in the harshed environment in the world. RIP Les.
Les Wright was a good guy?????
LesWright was a cowboy and a threat to the flying public. It would be typical of him to be flying into a strip illegally, which is what balus buskanaka is saying.
One of his favorite practices was to fail to lodge load sheets so that he could avoid landing and take-off weight limitations.
I fail to see how somone who regularly broke aviation regulations and killed his passengers and pilots just so he could line his own pockets can be called a good guy.